Friday, November 09, 2012

Root Words, Math Facts, and Cursive

I'm ashamed to admit that there was a time (earlier this week) when I would have agreed with the research supporting having students memorize and perform such "old school" activities, but now I see them as nothing more than a way to keep minority students down:

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The real racism is in forcing oppressed people to attend school in the first place. Their great great great great grandparents picked cotton for the master, hence they should not have to do anything now but get money from those who have the audacity to think work is important

I had to do a double take to make sure I was reading the right blog a couple of days ago. It was late. I was tired. And I was enraged by the end of your entry... Until I clicked out of Google Reader to leave some incendiary remarks, only to find it was your blog, of course. Perfect. :)

To my mind, all students ought have at least rudimentary cursive training and a basic understanding of many Latin root words. I also fancy that they ought be able to read and converse in the English language tolerably well.

I don't even understand how this training keeps anyone down, if these are the sorts of skills the children will need to take their rightful place in the world as adults (!!??). I'm sure I'm missing something here, because I don't support "institutional racism" either, but don't see how this is it.

I'm glad to see from your blog title that you're being sarcastic, but wow. Could you imagine keeping children ignorant in order to "combat racism?"